


I'm Only Human

by Itssilverbrich



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dead Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Dehumanization, Discrimination, Enemies to Friends, Eye Trauma, Gen, George Sapnap and Jschlatt don't really show up in this chapter but they will, Good Older Sibling Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Good Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Hurt Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Hybrid Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Hybrid Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Hybrid TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Parental Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Phantom Hybrid Phil Watson, Phantom Hybrid Tommyinnit, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Piglin Hybrid Wilbur Soot, Protective Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Protective TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Wilbur Soot, Techno feels like hes not enough and wishes he was more like Phil, Tommy would just like his dinner and his brother blease, Twins Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, Wilbur feels likes hes not enough and wants to be more like Techno, Worldbuilding, they will
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itssilverbrich/pseuds/Itssilverbrich
Summary: Technoblade is the technical oldest of three siblings. All of them are hybrids. If they are discovered, they're dead.Technoblade will not let his siblings get hurt.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Sapnap & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 124





	I'm Only Human

**Author's Note:**

> I have decided the Dream SMP isn't real, the only truth is Sleepy Boys Family Dynamic

Technoblade was many things. He was a warrior, a hybrid, a farmer, a provider.    
He was not a good son or a good brother.    
  
When Phil died, it was with a snarl on his face and a bloody sword in his hand and Techno hates that it’s the last thing he remembers of him.   
  
Wilbur, his twin, remembers being tucked in to a part enderian, part piglin lullaby and a gentle kiss on his forehead. Tommy remembers a warm and comforting wing being wrapped around his body.    
  
Techno wishes he didn’t remember but he does so he holds onto a sword and bares his teeth, just like his father.    
  
He had so little of Phil left, that violence sometimes felt like the only thing connecting them. Phil’s and Techno’s battlecry, harmonizing with the screams of those wishing to kill them and failing.    
Phil never would have wanted that connection.    
Technoblade was not a good son.    
  
“Techno?” the piglin hybrid looked up from his staring contest with the fire to look at his baby brother, emerging from their tent. “Are you still up?”   
Tommy sleepily rubbed his eyes, small scaly wings fluttering a bit behind him. It was ironic, in Techno’s opinion,    
“Nope,” Techno snorted with a small grin. “I ran away to join the circus.”    
“No, you didn’t!” the six year old huffed, punching his ten year old brother with his little fists. “You’re right here!”   
“Oh, wow, you caught me, Tommy,” Techno rolled his eyes as the younger pulled himself onto the log before the campfire. “Now why are you up?”   
“.....I had a nightmare.” Tommy admitted with a whisper.    
Ah. Techno saw now. He couldn’t offer much when it came to comfort, that was more Wilbur’s thing. Identical looks did not equal identical skills. Doesn’t mean he couldn’t try.   
“Oh,” Techno struggled for the right Comfort Words. “Do you want to talk about it?”   
Tommy shook his head and Techno tried to hide his sigh of relief.    
“Can… can you tell me about Dadza?” Tommy asked instead and Techno nearly screamed.    
“Phil?” Techno questioned, as if Tommy would say no and refer to a different ‘Dadza’. “Oh, uh…. Sure.”   
Tommy got comfortable, burrowing his head against Technoblade’s ribs. Techno was too busy panicking to correct him.   
“Phil, Dadza, was… brave. Very brave, he used to be a knight! He protected a queen but when she turned her back on her people, he ran away.” Techno said. A mind-controlling dragon is similar to a queen, right?    
“Ran away? That doesn’t sound very brave.” Tommy said. Techno bristled before forcing himself to calm down.   
“If he hadn’t ran, the queen would have forced him to hurt innocent people. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is run. Running in itself isn’t always cowardly, Tommy,” Techno corrected before continuing. “Dadza was also very smart. He knew when to talk and when to fight and he had the best words and strategies for every situation. There was not a single problem he could not work around.”    
“Even around black holes?” piped up Tommy. Techno let out a loud pearl of laughter before clamping down on it, ever aware of those hunting his kind and his still sleeping brother.    
“He never encountered a black hole but I’m sure he could’ve.” Techno reassured.   
“What was his favorite breakfast food?”   
  
What?   
Why would Tommy want to know that? Techno looked at his brother in mild confusion before frowning, digging into his deepest memories.    
“.....Pancakes,” the piglin hybrid finally said, almost too quiet for Tommy to hear, remembering golden mornings in a warm home. “Dadza loved pancakes, loved to drown his in way too much syrup. It’d get in his hair and then he’d have to wash it out.”    
Tommy hummed, nearly asleep. His hair shines gold in the firelight and Techno’s throat catches, reminded so much of Phil by his baby brother.   
Technoblade couldn’t let Tommy get hurt, he promised Phil he’d protect him and Wilbur. Techno  _ promised _ .   
  
He’d make some pancakes for breakfast, they probably have at least half of the ingredients on hand. 

  
  
When Techno and Wilbur discovered an abandoned shack, it brought an interesting dilemma.   
Wilbur wanted to stay, already attached to the small town nearby. Techno thought it’d be smarter to stay on the move, harder to hunt them down.   
It….. led to some fights.   
  
“You are unbelievable! You’re looking at the best possible living situation we could have been given and saying _no_!” Wilbur threw his hands up, long brown tail flicking back and forth.   
“The best possible living situation would not be so close to civilization,” Techno retorted, his own pink tail lashing in agitation as well. “If we slipped up even a little bit, we’d be slaughtered where we stand.”   
“So, what, we just keep running forever?” Wilbur yanked on his bangs. “Techno, that’s not gonna be good for us, for Tommy! He’s ten! He’s just a little kid! He deserves some stability! _I_ deserve some stability!”  
Techno hesitated. He imagined Tommy and Wilbur happily enjoying pancakes, like they did as kids, like they did every now and then, drowning the burnt breakfast food in syrup. He imagined Tommy learning to fly, flitting from tall tree to tall tree. He imagined Wilbur strumming the guitar, sitting on the porch.   
“Fine,” Techno sighed after a long moment. “But if we end up dying, I’m haunting you.”  
Wilbur cheered and pumped his fist, rushing towards the mossy shack. Tommy poked his head out of the floorboards as Wilbur ran past.   
Techno frowned, still nervous. But Wilbur did have a point, didn’t he? What kind of life was Techno making his brothers live if they never had a proper home? But they wouldn’t live long if they weren’t safe.   
Techno worried at his lip, looking in the direction of the village. As long as they kept their distance, they’d be fine, right?   
  
  
Tommy was still asleep when Wilbur got up and went into the room they had designated the bathroom and didn’t come out until Tommy had long run out to play for the day.   
His breakfast sat on the kitchen table, cold and probably purposely too salty, judging by Tommy’s giggles when Techno left the room for a minute.  
Wilbur came out like a ghost, his long coat swirling behind him, quieter than he should have been.  
A floorboard creaked under his careful steps and Techno looked up from his book.   
“Wil!” he said, placing his book down. “Are you….. Okay? You were in there for a pretty long time. Tommy was concerned.”  
“I’m fine!” Wilbur said chipperly, keeping his face pointed away from Techno. “I’m gonna head out today, alright? I promise I’ll be careful and won’t draw too much attention to myself, yada.”  
“What’s on your face.” Techno tensed, frowning. Wilbur went quiet, still looking away. “Wilbur, what’s on your face-”  
Techno’s hands went up and gripped Wilbur’s cheeks, turning his twin’s face towards him.   
Techno let out a strangled gasp and threw himself back, as if he were struck.   
“Your tusks….” Techno said in horror, reaching up to his own.   
  
A little known yet obvious fact about piglins, hybrid or otherwise, was that there was a lot of cultural pride and emphasis around tusks. To cut them could mean a number of things, mourning, exiled, divorced, dishonored, none of them good. Of course, cutting them never meant…   
  
Wilbur’s face was free of any sign of those teeth, like he had taken some pliers and yanked them out. Techno prayed not. Tusks could grow back, they constantly grew, but if they were yanked out, goodbye forever.   
“What did…” Techno’s voice came out shaky and unsure. He cleared it and tried again. “What did you _do_?”  
“Isn’t it obvious?” Wilbur sighed, reaching up to touch his face, gloved hands brushing over the space where his tusks should be. “I thought you’d be happier. I’m safe now, right? Can’t kill me for being a hybrid if they can’t tell I am one.”  
“I-” Techno started and then stopped. Logically, it did make sense but Techno had not once considered it, never thought to hide his ears or his tail, never thought to file his tusks down to a dull grove in his mouth. Never thought of tying Tommy’s purple and scaly wings to his back and making him wear a shirt over them. It made sense to run but to hide? Hiding never was an option for Technoblade.   
Phil never hid.   
  
_Phil is dead, isn’t he?_  
  
Techno remained quiet. Wilbur avoided his gaze.   
“I’ll be back before dinner, probably,” Wilbur said quietly, the door squealing as it opened. “Don’t wait up for me if I’m late.”   
The door let out a horrible screech as it closed and Techno made a note to oil it before his brothers got home.   
  
Their new home brought a new routine; wake up, cook up breakfast, bicker over public school with Tommy, try not to get mad at Wilbur filing his tusks down to nothing every morning, make sure Wilbur eats breakfast before going out, wrestle Tommy into doing a little bit of schoolwork, feed Tommy lunch, release Tommy to the mercy, check out the small garden Techno had started, _kill the hunters who got too close and too cocky to him_ , go home, make dinner, feed Tommy, put Tommy to bed, reheat dinner, feed Wilbur, go to bed.   
The routine was… pleasant in some areas and less so in others. No one likes seeing their twin destroy a body part they themselves were proud of and no one truly enjoyed killing. The challenge of the fight, the rush of adrenaline, the relief of a threat eliminated, but the actual death? No, not really. Techno, despite his utter hatred towards the hunters, gave those he had to a quick and merciful death.   
He hated them more for his mercy, knowing his family did not and would not receive the same kindness if caught.   
But they would not be caught. For as long as Technoblade could breath, could fight, Wilbur and Tommy would be safe.   
They had to be. Techno promised Phil. Techno promised.   
  
“Tommy, if you don’t hurry up, I’m going to eat your breakfast, you goblin-” Techno stopped as he opened the door.  
Tommy stopped as well, hands in the middle of tightening the bindings around his chest and his wings.   
They stared at each other, trying to convince themselves it was nothing but a nightmare.  
“Technoblade!” Tommy finally said with false cheer. “Technoblade, my friend-”  
“You’re going into town with Wilbur,” Techno interrupted, always one for getting straight to the point. “Yes?”  
“....Yeah,” Tommy finally responds. “Wil said, said you’d let me go. As long as you knew I’d be safe. Wil wanted me to wear his stupid coat but I remembered some other winged people saying binding hides their wings better and-”   
Tommy stops. He doesn’t need to go on.   
_At least Wilbur didn’t suggest it,_ Techno thinks before sighing aloud. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know _how_ to say. How do you tell your little brother whether or not it’s okay to hide who you are when he could be killed for it? How do you let him possibly damage his wings forever for the sake of being able to live a normal life in normal society?   
“Just…. Take them off as soon as you get home,” Techno eventually says. “You’re gonna learn how to fly soon, you don’t want to hurt your wings.”   
Tommy’s eyes lit up and he nodded eagerly, pulling the fabric tighter to his chest before throwing his shirt on. Techno notices a red bandana covers the purple vein like scales on Tommy’s neck and bandaids on the few scales on his face.  
It makes sense. The scales were a clear indicator of what Tommy was, a Phantom Hybrid. He would need to hide them even more than the wings.   
Tommy ran up to Techno and before the piglin teen could react, hugged as tight as he could. It didn’t feel the same as when he would hug Techno and wrap his whole wings around him.   
  
Wilbur gave him a concerned and bewildered glance as they walked out the door.   
“Techno, are you-” Wilbur questioned softly, reaching out to him. Techno pulled himself out of Wilbur’s reach, eyes cold and guarded.   
“I’m fine.” he said sharply. Wilbur looked hurt for a minute before his gaze steeled and he turned away, heading out the door.   
“We’ll be back before-” Wilbur started.   
“Before dinner but if you’re not, eat without you,” Techno snarled out. “I know. Have fun with Schatt or whatever.”  
Wilbur glared before storming out.   
  
Later, Techno would pat himself on the back for keeping it together long enough to leave the house before exploding, the house had been hell to get into a livable state and he’d hate to have to repair it.   
The woods just beyond their door frame were not so lucky, tree trunks left scarred from the wild lashings of a well cared for and well loved blade, earth carved into, the quiet and the peace interrupted by angry screams.   
Techno let out another cry as he sliced a chunk out of the mighty oak before him.   
  
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Wilbur had to remove his tusks to find friends to play his songs for. It wasn’t fair that Tommy was going to have to hide his wings in order to carve himself a place in the world. It wasn’t fair the three had to raise each other. It wasn’t fair Phil didn’t survive and Techno did.   
Techno’s sword hit the mossy ground and Techno followed it, hoofed hand over mouth.   
And that was it, wasn’t it? Techno would never be enough. Could never be enough. If Phil had been there, maybe something actually helpful would have been the reaction to Tommy’s wing binding, something encouraging and emboldening, something that would do more than ease physical potential pain and leave a cloud of tension over the room. Maybe Wilbur would have left the cabin with tusks intact and a smile, instead of storming out barefaced. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe.   
Techno was never meant to be both father and brother, hell, he’d argue he was never even meant to be a brother. Maybe a fighter, maybe a farmer, maybe dead, but _not a brother._   
Techno thought he’d accepted it but, _apparently_ , seeing one’s siblings physically change their appearance, an appearance you still shared and took a far bit of pride in, was enough to renew _all_ of those doubts and insecurities. Which was just convenient, wasn’t it?  
  
Techno let out a shuddering sigh, running his hand down his face, tears yet to fall but still painfully close to the edge. He wouldn’t let them fall. Techno hadn’t cried beyond that first night, eight years ago, when two eight year old piglin hybrids and a fledgling toddler phantom fled into the night.   
Techno forced himself to breath, standing to his feet. He hadn’t cried then. He wasn’t going to cry now.   
  
Techno heard the whistle of something moving through the air and turned, barely able to dodge the hooked arrow’s trajectory. He stiffened, his nose and ears twitching as his eyes scanned the forestry for predators.   
Techno was not alone and, if he was not acutely aware of how dead he could be in five minutes, he would be embarrassed at being caught at such a vulnerable moment.   
The woods are quiet, a slight breeze chilling Techno despite the fuzzy cloak around his shoulders. Techno’s tail swung back and forth, the only visible sign of his fear.   
  
Another arrow fell, from a different direction, but Techno ducked, eyes following its path to a particularly leafy tree.   
For a moment, Techno considers attacking before realizing, A)his predator had a long range weapon and he doesn’t, B)the archer might not be alone, and C)he was really not in the best position for actually fighting, considering he just spent the last 20 minutes screaming his throat sore and using way too much energy to attack poor trees.   
It’d be best to perform a tactical retreat.   
Techno took a step in the direction of home, only for an arrow to hit the ground in front of him. This was going to be difficult.   
Techno started walking again, going a little faster with each step until he was in a full blown run, arrows raining down on him.   
It was sheer luck that he was not hit, doing his best to duck and weave around the arrows.   
  
But one can not survive by luck alone.  
  
The barbed edge of the arrow hurt just as much as he expected, a pained squeal escaping Techno as it buried itself in his back.   
He stumbled for a second, snarling at the cheer he heard at it.   
With a grunt, Techno forced himself forward, resolving to deal with the arrow at home.   
He barely got two steps before another hit, actually sending him to the ground. He hissed in pain before moving to stand.   
Another arrow embedded itself in his shoulder and Techno blacked out.   
  
When he comes to, there’s an ache in his mouth and a wet pain in his back and a weight not like a person’s on his chest.   
He opens his eyes to see a mask, simple and ebony white, only a crudely drawn smiley face marring its surface, and a hand wrapped around one of his tusks, hacking at it with a knife. They appeared to be having some trouble keeping a steady hold on it with the thin golden band on it. They huffed before pulling it off, shoving it in their pocket. They resumed their sawing, the knife glinting in the afternoon sun.   
Techno stares at it for a moment, blearly wondering why he doesn’t feel it. His eyes turned to the side, noting the arrows were removed from his back side and placed to the left of the hunter’s and tinted with a mixture of blood and something else.  
Probably a potion, if Techno’s nose was correct.   
Probably would explain why it took Techno so long to react to-  
  
 _He’s cutting off my tusks,_ his mind thinks numbly and then he is in his attacker’s face, snarling. The masked hunter startles at his sudden wakeness and pulls back, taking the tusk with him. Techno scrambled to his feet, taking advantage of the space given to run for his life. He hears a shout behind as the hunter also rises to his feet, abandoning the long tusk.   
  
The forest blurs and Technoblade is dizzy from a mixture of potions and blood loss and does absolutely nothing to help the piglin hybrid figure out his way home.   
Wait.  
Should he even go home? 

  
Techno stopped, the thought confusing him more.   
If he went home, well, he was in no position to defend himself and his younger brothers would return home to either his corpse, an ambush, or both. 

_ If I got captured, I could always escape later _ , he lies to himself.  _ They’ll be safe. They’re my number one priority. I won’t go down without a fight but they won’t be prepared to fight. _   
His eyes narrow and, with all the remaining strength he has, he turns on the hunter like the animal they think he is.    
It’s hard for Technoblade to tell with the creepy white mask but he thinks the hunter is surprised, yelling at the ‘dumb pig’ to get off of them.    
They wrestle on the ground, Techno resorting to every cheap trick but biting to take out the hunter, claws and hoofs scrambling at the lime clad figure in hopes of injuring them.   
The hunter screams barbed insults at Techno but Techno remains quiet, throat sore and not in the mood to talk to the possible killer.    
He doesn’t see the hunter get a hold of a tipped, barbed arrow until it’s embedded in his eye. Techno squeals in shock and pain, wheeling off the hunter.    
In a second, the hunter is on him, pulling the arrow free and raising it once more.   
Techno feels a hand around his neck, sees the arrow move down, and then everything went black.    
  
  
“Techno, we’re home!” Wilbur calls out, Tommy pushing past him to get out. The house is dark, none of the usual candles or the fireplace lit.    
Wilbur huffs and heads upstairs. Figures, the pinkette was probably still angry or whatever. He means, it makes sense that he’d be a little hurt about being left behind all day alone but Techno was usually so unflappable. What made today so different?   
  
Wilbur opened their bedroom door, expecting to see Techno moping or reading or even napping in the middle of the blanket mess his twin called a bed.    
The room was empty and still the organized mess from this morning, undisturbed since. Wilbur frowned, feeling his ears twitch under his beanie.    
“Wilbur?” Tommy calls from the kitchen. “There’s no dinner! Oh, and no Techno!”   
No dinner? No matter how upset or busy or tired Techno was, he always cooked dinner. Even when he was sick, Wilbur had to physically restrain the other to stop him from doing his usual tasks.    
Techno loved routine and it would take hell itself opening up and consuming Techno to get him to change it voltenneurly.    
Wilbur came downstairs, watching as Tommy waved a hand over their dying stove. It had taken Wilbur and Techno forever to repair that thing and it was still permanently on its last legs.    
“It’s not even a little hot!” Tommy said, frowning, and Wilbur felt like one of the bears from Goldilocks, wondering what happened in the house he called home while he was out to disrupt it in such a subtle but significant manner.    
“Maybe he’s still out hunting?” Wilbur says but he doesn’t really believe it, Techno was an excellent hunter, to not have caught anything by now? Inconceivable.    
But Tommy’s eyes are already lighting up and he’s grabbing one of the wooden swords Wilbur had carved for Tommy’s lessons with Techno.    
Wilbur frowns and grabs his sharper iron sword, following Tommy out.    
  
It takes a minute to find Techno’s trail, the older always cautious of those who would prefer their heads on pikes than their shoulders. Tommy babbles as they walk deeper and deeper into the woods surrounding their humble abode, the quiet and calm atmosphere doing nothing to relax Wilbur’s worries.    
Tommy quiets at the first scarred tree and Wilbur dashes over to it. He runs his gloved hands over the wood and sighs with slight relief. They’re old, probably more signs of sword practice than Techno fighting off hunters or some vicious mob or animal.    
They get less old as they walk but no less brutal, and maybe they’re from stress and not the calm composure of a Techno ready and willing to kill.    
Wilbur feels a pang of guilt and smothers it. He has nothing to feel guilty for. Their piglin heritage had never done anything good for them, why shouldn’t Wilbur forsake it in order to be a part of the larger world? Wilbur can’t help it if his twin took it personally or not.    
  
The guilt lingers for longer than it should.    
  
Tommy stops and stares.    
“Wilbur?” he says, softly, quietly, like he’s afraid. Wilbur lifts his head and hurries to catch up to his baby brother.    
“What is it?” Wilbur asks, placing a hand on Tommy’s shoulder and following the younger’s line of sight.    
Techno’s sword, well cared for and well beloved, was discarded on the forest floor, iron shining out from the grass in the light of the sinking sun.   
Wilbur doesn’t move towards it but Tommy does and, as the younger phantom hybrid retrieves Techno’s signature sword, the sense of wrongness rises in Wilbur.    
Wilbur swallows around a lump in his throat and raises his hands to his mouth.    
“Technoblade!” he screams out and immediately regrets it, scoldings from both Techno and  _ Dadza _ echoing in his head as his voice echoes in the empty clearing, potentially drawing attention from Techno’s potential attackers.   
“Blade!” Tommy screams out as well, the warnings not as burnt into his mind as Wilbur’s.    
Either way, there is no response, not from a hunter and not from Wilbur’s twin.    
  


Wilbur takes a deep breath and signs. And then he stops. His nose, powerful enough to smell good mushrooms for a stew for a mile around, twitches at the haunting scent of copper.    
Wilbur stills, even his tail halting its movements, before he surges forward, catching Tommy by surprise. Tommy shouts after him but Wilbur can smell  _ blood  _ and he can’t find Techno.    
  
Wilbur finally stops, barely avoiding stepping a pile of drying blood, the grass stained red. Wilbur slams his hands over his nose and mouth, afraid he was going to be sick. That was blood, Techno’s blood, maybe, and the very idea of it made the smell suffocating.    
“Wilbur!” calls Tommy yet again, far too quiet and far too afraid and Wilbur does not know how to assure Tommy right now. Wilbur was good when Tommy was sad, when he was angry, but not when he was afraid. Usually, when Tommy was afraid, so was Wilbur. Technoblade was the brave one, the strong one.    
He looked over at Tommy, the smaller blond cradling something curved and ebony white in his hands. Wilbur’s heart stopped and his thrashing tail stilled.    
  
Wilbur carefully, with shaking hands, picked up the tusk,  _ Techno’s tusk _ , and stared. It looked painfully bare, stripped of the light gold ring the other wore on it in memory of their father. In memory of Phil.    
Words crashed into Wilbur’s head as he stared at the pride of his twin, painfully aware that Techno would rather die than allow himself to be dishonored in the way this forlorn tusk suggested. Words that once brought Wilbur comfort, reassurances and jokes and promises, all given to him by one pink headed piglin, now burned him, painful reminders of a twin that was now certainly gone forever.    
“Techno! Technoblade!” he faintly heard Tommy scream out and he distantly thought he should tell Tommy to stop screaming, that Techno was gone, that he was never coming back, that he was  _ dead _ -   
Wilbur fell to his knees, barely aware of Tommy’s shout of concern as he went down or of the blood surely staining his jeans.    
Wilbur’s twin was dead and the last thing he would remember of his face would be Techno scowling as Wilbur and Tommy abandoned him, for what? To be part of a world that would never accept them as they were, that would kill them if they even so much as breathed wrong?    
Schlatt was his friend and Tommy had had fun today but this, this was a reminder of how conditional this world’s  _ love _ was.    
Wilbur was a poet and Tommy was a child and Techno was a person and yet that all meant nothing due to their tusks, their tails, and Tommy’s wings.    
Techno had been slaughtered, like an animal, probably, and he had done nothing to deserve it but fight to live.    
An anger that was so familiar to Wilbur’s family rose in Wilbur’s chest, in time with the lowering of the sun. Wilbur stood, the tusk grasped firmly in his grasp and turned to Tommy. The younger stared up at him, tears streaking down his small and confused face.    
“Wilbur?” Tommy asked. “What are we gonna do?”   
“Oh, Tommy,” Wilbur grinned, something sharp and vicious as he discarded his gloves, hooved hands reaching up to his beanie. “We’re gonna find the  _ monsters  _ who did this….”   
Tommy paled before his eyes darkened, something as equally angry and destructive rearing up inside him.    
“ _ And we’re gonna tear the motherfuckers apart. _ ”   
  
  
  
Dream hummed as he worked, the small drill piercing a hole in the tusk like it was paper. The wagon bounced every now and then, the hunter’s faithful steed, Spirit, pulling it along without any needed guide.    
He paused in his work to glance in the trunk, just to make sure the creature was still unconscious.    
The piglin hybrid was still out of it, its pink hair stained and matted with blood. Without its tusks, it almost looked human, even its piglike nose able to pass off as just a strangely shaped nose.    
But Dream knew better and he was relieved he caught it before it could do some actual destruction.    
The forest had been scarred by its rampage and it made Dream queasy to imagine what it would do to a person.    
He got a pretty good idea when he tackled it but it had been out of it and drugged enough to knock out a horse so who really knows?    
The creature was clearly too dangerous to be left alive but Dream knew bringing in an abomination like that was sure to get him in someone’s good graces, maybe enough to be promoted to an actual hunter, and not just a mercenary sometimes called on.    
And, hey, if it died from blood loss and/or shock from its loss of an eye, no foul.    
Dream, satisfied, turned back to his task, looping a thin chain through the hole in the tusk. He beamed, sliding the golden ring he had managed to get off the other tusk onto it. It looked perfect, a lovely necklace indeed.    
Tusks were incredibly rare and gold stood out perfectly against the ebony white. Yes, the tusk necklace with two gold bands, one thin and like a ring, the other wider but flatter, was a perfect birthday gift for George.    
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I swear, Techno is gonna be fine and Dream is not a bad guy. This time.


End file.
